


Interlude

by Bloomcat



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Avengers Endgame, Background Stony - Freeform, Canon Compliant, M/M, Steve POV, endgame spoilers, i dunno, is this major character death?, sad Steve
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-17
Updated: 2019-05-17
Packaged: 2020-03-07 00:06:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,039
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18861709
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bloomcat/pseuds/Bloomcat
Summary: *SPOILERs for Endgame!!!!*This is a little Interlude I wrote. It plays between Tony's death and Steve traveling back to the past. Also, I am bad at titles :D Maybe I will change it if I find a better one.They had won and they had achieved their goal. Everyone that had disappeared after Thanoses snap was back and alive. Thanos was defeated and Steve had his best friends back. Yet he felt like he had lost everything. What was he even supposed to do now?





	Interlude

When the first Chitauri and finally Thanos disappeared, Steve had felt relief. Exhaustion was settling in his bones and he felt a smile creep up on his face. That was when his gaze fell upon Tony and the world seemed to stop. He noticed the stones on Tonys’s hand, and it finally registered in his head that someone had used the stones to disintegrate Thanos and his army. That someone had been Tony. Using the stones would kill a human being. Tony was a human being. _Tony was dying._

Steve watched Tony lying there between the rubble of what was once his home. His skin was pale, and his arm and face burned. He seemed lucid, ill, like a man who was lying on his death bed. Pepper, Rhodey and Peter had run towards him and were talking to him. _Steve couldn’t move_. He felt something salty on his lips and only noticed now that he was crying. He saw Tony slipping away from Pepper. _Steve couldn’t move._

How often has his world chattered in the last years? Steve couldn’t tell anymore. Tony has given him a home. He had always something that had pulled Steve towards him. After Thanos had killed half of the population, he had been lost. Then they found Tony alive and he had dared himself to feel hope. Because Tony was there, and they fixed things together. Except, Tony didn’t want him by his side anymore. Without him, he did not know what to do. Fighting on Tony’s side had felt so right. It felt like he could finally breathe. The two years after their “Civil War” had felt like suffocating to him. Like drowning all over again.

When he had held Tony in his arms after landing back on the compound, home, he had finally remembered what it had felt like to breathe again, but Tony did not want him anymore. He had failed the one person that Steve could not live without.

And now Steve watched how he had failed again. How selfish he had been, excited and happy to stand next to Tony once more, to fight for the same goal. Ripping Tony from the one happiness he had finally achieved what he now left behind. Steve had had nothing more to lose when going into this fight. But Tony, Tony had had everything to lose. And he did.

Tony was wonderful. He was creation, life, hope. Steve was destruction, failure, and despair. He had ruined him.

All Steve could do was watch from afar, as the light on Tony’s chest went out and his sparkling, gorgeous and warm brown eyes went dull. _Steve felt cold._

They stood there, around the greatest hero, mourning him for quite some time. Until it was time to clear everything and talk about the after. Steve did not want to talk about the after. He had to do it for the past five years, he did not know if he could do it again. Not without Tony.

It was him that had the honor of carrying Tony away. Pepper had asked him, and he couldn’t say no. If it was the last time, he ever could hold Tony in his arms again, he would take it. Even if it was his lifeless body. He couldn’t stop his tears and he did not dare to look down on Tony as he held him close to his body. Only when he had to lay him down, did he look at Tony’s lifeless face again and he felt himself fall apart even more.

“I’m sorry” he whispers again and again to him, as he strokes a strand of hair out of his face. They let him for a while until Rhodey tucks him away. Bucky is there and leads him out of the room. Sam tells them that they will be informed once the funeral will be held. He also tells them to get some rest after the fight and to find some peace. Steve nearly huffs at that, but he is too tired to care.

He lets them both lead him away and finds himself in front of the doorstep of the place he had officially stayed in when he wasn’t on the compound.

“Do you have a key here somewhere?” Sam asks.

“It’s probably somewhere between the rubble on the compound” he answers.

Bucky just looks at them before he rips open the door and gestures them to walk inside. Sam looks like he wants to protest but Steve is too tired to care and just walks in. The apartment is small and old. It only has the necessary furniture and there is a layer of dust on them. He has some photos here and there, from the Howling Commandos and some from the Avengers but nothing more. It had never been his home, nor did he stay here for long, so he had not really tried to make it more homely. He made his way straight to his bedroom when he noticed Bucky had entered too. He sighed.

“Thank you. I will be alright from now.” He said. Maybe he should feel more enthusiastic to spend his time with his two best friends after he got them finally back. But their victory had only made him feel numb.

“Sam has already left to reunite with his family, but I do not really have a place to stay for now. Not after I have been apparently gone for five years.” Bucky said.

“Ah right,” he said. “I have a couch in the living room where you can sleep.”

Bucky let out a sigh and came up to hug Steve. Steve stiffened at first but then he let exhaustion and grief overcome him. He went limp against him and cried. Bucky held him through it and told him it was okay. Except it wasn’t. _But it should, shouldn’t it?_

They had won and they had achieved their goal. Everyone that had disappeared after Thanoses snap was back and alive. Thanos was defeated and Steve had his best friends back. Yet he felt like he had lost everything. What was he even supposed to do now?

Hours later, when Steve had calmed down, he told Bucky exactly how he feels. He tells him that he should be delighted that Bucky, Sam and everyone else is back. He tells him he thought he had nothing to lose when going into this fight, but when Natasha had not come back from their time travel and now, that they had lost Tony, he knows he was wrong. Because he had lost the one thing he cannot live without.

Bucky listens the whole time and after he finished, he tells him that that is a normal feeling when losing someone you loved and assured him that they are not taking it personally. Steve had realized his feelings for Tony in the 2 years before Thanos. He and Bucky had talked about it when he had visited him in Wakanda.

Bucky asks him if he knows what he will do now, and Steve says he has no idea. He feels like he lost his purpose. His guiding light through this time. Tony had been his anchor. _Steve feels like he is drowning._

Later, when Steve and Bucky had something to eat, he gets a text from Bruce that tells him that they still need to return the stones to prevent the future and past timelines to collapse.

Steve thinks about it. Someone needs to return the stones. They need to travel back and return them to the time where they took them from. To timelines where Tony was still alive. Where he could see Tony once more. His captivating eyes, his hands, with which he created incredible things and the light that guided him. He made up his mind and texted Bruce back that he would do it.

Bucky looked at him knowingly when Steve told him about the upcoming mission.

“I know you already made up your mind, but is that what you really want?” Bucky asks.

Steve looks at him firmly and tells him: “Yes.”

“I have to.” He adds. “I have failed him all these past years and could not keep the promise I made him.”

“And he is alive there.”

“And he is alive there” Steve confirms. “I love him Bucky. I want to do it right by him. Even if it’s just from afar. I don’t think I can live in a world where he is no longer.”

Bucky looks at him for a while and nods. “What about Captain America?” he asks. “He cannot just disappear like that.”

“I had wanted to ask Sam if he wants to take on the mantle.” He sheepishly said while ducking his head. Bucky lets out a laugh and squeezes Steve’s shoulder.

“He’ll be excited,” Bucky says.

They smile at each other and hug once more before they go to bed.

 

 

Steve lays awake in his bed. Now, that he has made up his mind, to not return after bringing back the stones, but instead go back to a Tony that is alive, he feels better. Crying it out to Bucky had also helped a lot. He starts to plan on the route he wants to take. Which places to visit first and on which to stay. He remembers seeing Peggy in the office and how he yearned for that simple life Tony had advised him, all these years ago.

He wonders about how he will tell Sam and the others or if he will at all. He guessed telling them beforehand would only make them want to stop him, and he did not want that. Not to mention the pity they would probably throw at him. Meaning, he would need to return at some point, but he would worry about that later. After all, he would have a lot of time.

 

 

 

Tony’s funeral and his last message brought up a lot of grief and guilt. But knowing that he would see Tony alive soon, helped him through it.

“Remember, you have to return the stones in the exact moment you got them, or you’ll open a bunch of nasty alternative realities,” Bruce said.

Steve closed the suitcase with the stones. “Don’t worry, Bruce. Clip all the branches.”

“You know I tried. But I had the gauntlet and the stones. I’ve really tried to bring her back. I miss her, man.” Bruce said softly.

“Me too” he answered.

He took the case and went to the platform as Sam approached him.

“You know if you want, I could come with you,” he said.

Steve smiled at that. Sam really was a good friend and he was sure he would be an amazing Captain America. But this journey will be his own.

“You’re a good man Sam” he answered. “This one’s on me though.”

He walked towards Bucky. Steve was glad that Bucky knew what he was about to do and that they have talked about it. Leaving him behind without a word would have not been fair to his brother. He smiled at him.

“Don’t do anything stupid until I get back.”

Bucky let’s out a huff and grins back. “How can I. You’ll take all the stupid with you.”

They hug each other for one last time and Steve swears to himself he will search and find Bucky way sooner in the past. Bucky let’s go with a pat on his back.

“I’m gonna miss you buddy” he whispers.

“It’s gonna be okay, Buck.” With that Steve walks onto the platform and activates his suit. Mjölnir and the case with the stones in his hands.

“How long is this gonna take?” Sam asks.

Bruce answers him: “For him, for as long as he needs, for us, five seconds.”

Steve stays silent.

“You ready, Cap?” Bruce asks and Steve takes a deep breath before he nods towards Bruce. “I’ll meet you back here, ok?” Bruce continues.

“You bet” Steve answers. He hopes it’s not a lie.

“Going quantum, three …”

Steve looks once more towards Bucky. He smiles at him and Steve smiles back, even though Bucky won’t see it because of Steve’s helmet.

“… two …”

He takes a last deep breath.

“… one.”

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you liked my little interlude. It was a small idea I had today, and because I had time I wrote it. It's pretty simple, I guess. 
> 
> And it is open on purpose ^^" it leaves open for the reader's imagination on what Steve chooses to do, similar like they did it in the movie.
> 
> They really are soulmates in every universe, be it platonically or romantically <3


End file.
